Inducted in 2017
Attorney; Real Estate & Financial Services Executive
Member, Prep Board of Trustees (1985-1997)

Kevin Reynolds Hackett is not the first Fordham Prep Hall of Honor inductee to come from a family that made history, but he just might be the only one whose parents made geography.

Kevin was born in 1949 in Atlantic City, New Jersey. His parents, James Hackett and Kathleen Reynolds Hackett, were college sweethearts who met at New York University. Kevin’s father, a reporter for the Brooklyn Eagle and the Associated Press, was a hopeless romantic — and apparently something of a likable nudge. Finding himself stationed on Bougainville Island off Papua New Guinea during World War II, the insistent Lt. Hackett was somehow able to cajole the surveyor of the Marine Amphibious Corps into designating a small unnamed lake after his girlfriend back in Brooklyn. And so was Lake Kathleen named. James proposed by mail. Kathleen said yes. And the rest was cartography!

The Hacketts raised Kevin, his brother, James, and his sister, Kathleen, in Larchmont, New York, where they attended their parish grammar school, St. Augustine’s. During his grade school days, Kevin served as an altar boy and was a member of the Boy Scouts, attaining the rank of Eagle Scout.

In September 1963, Kevin Hackett took his first train ride down from Larchmont to the Fordham Road Station and the Rose Hill Campus, becoming a member of the homeroom of fellow 2017 Hall of Honor inductee, Mr. S. Jerome Martin — one of the teachers would always remember fondly in the years to come.  Maintaining honors student throughout his Hughes Hall years, Hackett was also four-year varsity swimmer and worked on the Library Staff under the supervision of Fr. George McAleer — yet another member of the Hall of Honor.

Among his many accomplishments, what stands out most from Kevin’s time at the Prep is his dedication to service. Though the formalization of the phrase “men for others,” was still a few years away in the late 1960s, there is no doubt that a teenage Kevin Hackett strove to live out its ideals. Early on, he was a part of the prayerful and charitable activities of the sodalities, later becoming involved with the outreach of the Christian Action Group. Moreover, he was very active with FORAHTS (Fordham Would Rather Help than Sleep) — a tutoring program that connected Fordham boys with local grammar school students in the hopes of preparing them for admission to schools like the Prep — a forerunner to the HAP and REACH programs.

Completing his Prep years as a member of the Class of 1967, Kevin would head to Boston College from which he graduated summa cum laude, and then to Harvard Law School where he earned his law degree in 1974. He would go on to serve his country as a captain in the U.S. Army.

On October 15, 1983, Kevin Reynolds Hackett and Consuelo Elisabethe Reese were married in St. Bridget’s Church in Cornwall Bridge, Connecticut. Consuelo, a Williams College and Harvard Graduate School alumna, was a vice president with Chase Manhattan Bank and was involved with the New York Housing Partnership, one of the many institutions to which she and Kevin would lend their time and talent down through the years. Together they would raise two sons, Christopher and Edward.

At the dawn of the 1980's, Kevin Hackett was well on his way to a career that would span both the legal and the business worlds. In 1982, he became a partner in the international law firm Milbank and was recruited in 1995 to join Shearman & Sterling as a partner. In 2004, he became President and CEO of the Rockefeller Group, a NewYork-based real estate company.  Completing a successful stint with Rockefeller during which he was credited with developing the company's domestic and international investment management platforms, Hackett was appointed CEO Emeritus and moved to Proskauer where he was elected a partner in the Real Estate Private Equity Group. He currently is a partner in London-based ICP which carries on an underwriting business in the Lloyd's of London insurance market.

Kevin Hackett has never lost that sense of service that was so much a part of his Fordham Prep experience. His continued support of outreach and education agencies is inspiring, as is his pro bono work on behalf of the neediest New Yorkers, such as his commitment to the Veterans Assistance Project at the City Bar Justice Center. As Kevin himself has often said, he is honored to have the opportunity to serve his disenfranchised veteran brothers and sisters who so bravely and selflessly served the American people.   

The FORAHTS-man of yesteryear has also devoted his energies to Fordham Prep and the continuation of its mission of faith, scholarship, and service that was so meaningful in his own life. From 1985 through 1997, he served on the Prep Board of Trustees, including a six year stint as board chair. His tenure coincided with the Sesquicentennial Campaign that added the Leonard Theatre, the Gabelli Hall of Honor, the Intramural Gym, and Mentor’s Court to the Prep. As the stories go, Hackett’s was one of the loudest and clearest voices when it came to dedicating the new auditorium in honor of Fr. Leonard. Perhaps the desire to name things of permanence is genetic.

The Hacketts currently live in Manhattan and attend St. Thomas More Church. Kevin makes time to serve on the parish council.